Friday, May 30, 2008

There's a fabulous moment in the NBC sitcom "30 Rock" when fictional NBC President Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) has just discovered the wonders of his network's past sitcom "Friends" and calls out to Liz Lemon (Tina Fey), "You're such a Monica!" Liz retorts: "You are!"

I mention this because, well, I'm a Charlotte. (Note: This would be the character of Charlotte York as played by Kristin Davis on the former HBO show "Sex and the City", being released today as a major motion picture.)

Oh, don't think me being a Charlotte will get me out to the theater to see the show's cinematic version. First, does anyone really care about my thoughts on the "Sex and the City" movie? Please, it's like a Jewel album. Critical reception is meaningless because her fans are gonna' buy the album either way. Second, can you envision me in a theater screening it? I imagine it would be similar to the Rilo Kiley concert I attended last Saturday but taken up four-dozen notches. They're a band fronted by a spectacularly beautiful and talented woman named Jenny Lewis and I noticed the songs of theirs I'd always found the least enjoyable were the songs to which the many females surrounding me were singing along with most passionately. Hmmm....

But me being an idiot guy doesn't mean I can't still be a Charlotte. What, you don't believe me?

Film critic James Berardinelli described Charlotte's plight in the film as her being "worried that her life may be too perfect and that karma may be waiting to put her through a wringer." Anyone who knows me is aware of my whole hangup on penance! As in, I finally paid off my car in September so my bills would go down only to have an appendicitis two weeks later so my bills went back up. Or as in, 2007 was the greatest year for movies I've ever experienced while 2007 was also the worst Nebraska Football season I ever experienced.

You may point to Charlotte being desperate for a kid and me, eh, not so much. Or aren't I? In the words of my friend John upon my stating for the third time, at least, about how I would bring my future kids to my friend Matt's annual Thanksgiving feast: "Nick, is your biological clock ticking?"

You may state that Charlotte is conservative and that I am not so conserative. Or aren't I? Well, I suppose when you consider I still seethe about the Fiesta Bowl no longer being played in the real Fiesta Bowl and tell people who support a playoff in college football to go f--- themselves I'm the Charlotte of college football.

There's a moment from a particular episode (I couldn't tell you which season) when the quartet has traversed over to Staten Island where Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) will be judging a fireman's calendar contest. Charlotte winds up drunk on "Staten Island Iced Teas" and as their night comes to a close we see her out on the dance floor, all by herself, drink firmly in hand, dancing around and singing along with her eyes closed to the song on the loudspeakers.

Look, I know I'm not supposed to understand every lyric Jenny Lewis wrote but I understand some of 'em. And I know I'm not supposed to understand every moment on "Sex and the City" - or even, truth be told, most of them - but I understand one of 'em. I'm a guy and the "Sex and the City" movie is not supposed to be for me and I'm supposed to hate it without having seen it and openly bad mouth it (like John Kass of the Chicago Tribune who stated that "no man should feel the agony of this film"). But you know what? I'm comfortable enough in my (supposed) masculinity to say that when Charlotte's doing that drunken boogie all by her lonesome to a song she thinks sums up her plight in life I'm not ashamed to say - despite my sexual orientation - yeah, that's me.